


By Now

by makapedia



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 04:35:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3556235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makapedia/pseuds/makapedia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her skin haunts him in the dark. Porcelain, and is she as soft and warm as she looks? He wants to drag his tongue down her neck and down her thighs and learn her, memorize her, remember her when he’s in Europe and she’s partnered with someone new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. By Now

The cigarette does not do what he wants it to; he feels lightheaded, dizzy, and the taste is so damn bitter that it makes him want to choke. **  
**

He settles for coughing into the back of his hand and taking another long drag. The back of his throat burns and his mouth is numb — but not numb enough, because he’s still got words swelling on his tongue, words that will get him into more trouble.

He supposes the bitterness would be soothing if he was used to it, but he’s only taken up the dirty little habit recently; stress relief, he tells Star, but part of him is sure that he does it to punish himself. It’s a low key self inflicted pain, slow brewing, but it makes him feel better every time he lights one and inhales; it’ll take him someday and it’s killing him, and he can make himself hurt for what he’s done, for what he’s lost.

Her nose flares and her brows knit. She sends him a scathing look over her shoulder and he can’t look her in the eye. “Not in here,” she scolds, and even though she’s not his meister anymore and he will never have the pleasure of feeling her warm hands grasp around his steel, he presses his cig out.

She murmurs her appreciation and he can’t meet her eyes.

He can remember her sitting in the very same seat for the first time. Twelve year old Maka, pigtails tied high and neat, smiling nervously at him because he was thirteen and she was a girl with big plans and dreams, and he was going to help her. She was so much smaller than she is now, and he has half a mind to apologize for all the hairbrained insults he’d slung her way in their adolescence. She looks so much older now, older than she should — she’s twenty but she’s got years in her eyes, and she’s always been older than she needed to be.

She’s strong and stubborn like a bull but he’s afraid to leave her alone. But she’s not afraid, never afraid — she’s a three star meister, she made him into a death scythe, and she’s going to do the same for someone else. And he’s going to take up a post elsewhere, because that’s what his job is, what his job was always going to be, and their foresight was shit.

He remembers thirteen year old Maka’s eyes and the spark — that spark that always got him going, always knew that ass kicking would follow. He’s always known that she would accomplish her goals but she looks so defeated now, even with her shoulders held as high as she can and lips poised in a thin line.

He misses the burn in his throat. It was easier to focus on than the quiver in her lip.

His key is cold in his hand, heavy and familiar yet far away at the same time. He presses it against the center of the table with a resonanting clank and she stares at the area pointedly. His fingers tug at the worn leather hem of his sleeve.

He’s never been without both his key and her before, but he has no need for the apartment. He’s going to be miles away, an ocean away, in a strange place with strange people and he’s not going to come home to Maka in the kitchen or Maka and Blair in the living room or Maka loitering around his room, tidying even when he tells her not to. He’s told her to stay out of his things more times than he can remember but he wants to take it all back if it means she’ll sink into his comforter and let him write his name in her soul. He’s touched her a thousand times but never intimately and he wants to, Death does he want to, but it’s unreasonable because he’ll be gone tomorrow morning, 5 AM sharp.

Her skin haunts him in the dark. Porcelain, and is she as soft and warm as she looks? He wants to drag his tongue down her neck and down her thighs and learn her, memorize her, remember her when he’s in Europe and she’s partnered with someone new.

He’s never hated her ambitions more than he does now. And he doesn’t hate her at all, not a little bit; he just wants to hold her and maybe kiss her.

“Soul,” she breathes, and his bones lock into place. “… It’s temporary. We’ll see each other again.”

His scar burns. He grunts, because he wants to tell her that he doesn’t want to leave at all but he has to because he has duties, duties that they’ve both earned him, and he wants her to come with him but she’s too damn held down in Death City. She’s born and raised, she has friends (their friends, his friends, Star and Tsubaki and Kid, Liz and Patty, everyone) and she couldn’t leave them.

But he has to go, and she has to stay. She teaches. She has obligations, and so does he. She gave him obligations by helping him best her father.

Her eyes are wide and sea glass, brittle and delicate but hardened through wear and tear. His fingers ache for her and she makes the first move. Her hand reaches out for him and he meets hers with such an embarrassing gusto that would normally leave him stumbling and red faced but her soul is pulsating against his.

She chokes on his name and hot tears are burning against his neck, where she’s settled and pressed herself against him. His hands tremble and he latches onto her. He grips at her back and holds her there. He wants his throat to burn. He wants the relief that the damn cigarette was supposed to give him but instead it’s Maka that kills him slowly. It’s Maka that croons his name and cries and cries, and his scar aches and he’s getting her hair wet with his own distress.

He doesn’t tell her he loves her when they pull away. He doesn’t need to tell her what she already knows, what he sees reflecting in her eyes. She’s a mirror and she’s crying, crying, and he won’t kiss her tears away like he wants. He wishes his tongue was salty. He wants to press the sadness off of her skin and soak it into himself but he can’t.

He lights up another cigarette when he leaves in the morning. The door closing behind him feels catastrophic. 


	2. This Is Gospel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The piano version of this song inspired this chapter. It's gorgeous.

His scent lingers for months in his old sheets. His room is a burial ground, a tomb holding relics of him, and she’s not brave enough to venture forth. She’s afraid that if she cracks the door, what’s left of him will escape and slip through her fingers. He’s nothing more than the ghost he left behind, the dust on his desk and phantom touches along her wrist.

She’s sentimental in ways she doesn’t want to own up to, so she keeps his door closed and his key in her pocket. 

Maka goes through the motions — she teaches, she eats dinner with Blair, she washes dishes and curls up on the couch to grade papers and read, since her free time’s been opened up because she’s out one room mate slash best friend slash love of her life.

The couch seems bigger without him. It’s ridiculous; the couch was too small, they’d said it for years, and now that it was just her, she’s nostalgic. She shouldn’t miss his feet on her lap or his too-long legs taking up room on her half but she does. She even misses his disregard for her documentaries and his eagerness to steal the remote when she put musicals on.

She wishes someone would pull an intervention on her when she starts to miss his hair in the shower drain. She finds a bottle of his aftershave in the kitchen cabinet and cries for an hour over it (it’s the first time she really cries and breaks down, and she’s ashamed when Blair stumbles upon her and comforts her, because she skips work for her sake and she shouldn’t need babying!). She’s twenty and she’s too young to have her heart broken, Blair says, and she should call Soul.

But Maka knows that a phone call won’t bring him back. He has duties, and she’s proud of him for what he’s accomplished and what they both accomplished together. 

His room is a graveyard and it’s so amazingly reminiscent of him and his place in Maka’s life — a constant through adolescence, through the developmental years and through the divorce, most importantly — that she finds herself crying again when she finally collects her pride and breeches it. It’s neater and emptier than she’s ever seen it.

She’s blindsided by memories and aches for him and she collapses against his mattress; she remembers old black sheets that he tore a thousand times with his blades (nightmares) and the comforters she stole on the nights the power went out to use as padding on the floor for the two of them. He’s left his blinds in place but the alarm clock is gone. 

He never used the darn thing anyway. She laughs damply and realizes that she’s crying. 

Lurking though his old room does nothing to help heal her heart and she knows that. She’s kicking up things that she needs to let go and let live in the past and she can’t stop herself. The ache in the center of her soul is poignant and throbbing, and she hates herself, not for the first time, for struggling with resonance with her new partner.

Resonance is elementary. It’s something one star meisters have to master, and she’s two levels above that now. She’s a graduate — a teacher! 

She’s so sure that Soul’s ruined her that she’s not even surprised when she chokes on her tears and sobs into his bare mattress. She thinks of all the porn mags he’d probably stowed away between his mattress and box spring like the brat he was when he was thirteen and there’s a twinge in the pit of her stomach because he looked at her like he loved her when he left and they wasted all their time swearing up and down that they were strictly platonic.

But was it them? Or was it just her? She’s not sure; she’s so accustomed to denying feelings for Soul that it’s become second nature to her. But she knows that she wishes he’d pinned her against his mattress instead of stowing away cheap magazines, wishes he would have kissed her before he left. She wants to know what it feels like.

She’s wanted to kiss him since she was sixteen.

And because she has no self control without him, because he’s her rock and keeps her bound to the ground and keeps her head from flying off her shoulders and turning into a total headcase, she dials him up. Her hand shakes and she can’t catch her breath. She doesn’t even know if she wants him to pick up the phone or not.

He does. She’s disgusted with herself for knowing the sound of his breath (a sharp intake and then the low, low hum of his voice). “Maka?”

Her name is the sweetest offense; she caves in, quivering shoulders quaking with a fresh bawl of his name and she’s shaking. There are tears everywhere and she can’t stop herself because she misses him, she hates his obligations and her circumstances and she wants him to come home and stay forever. She tells him she loves him over and over until she can’t differentiate the sounds of his hurried breaths from hers.

"Maka.  _Maka_ ,” he tries, but his voice is layered with guilt and want and her thighs burn, her chest burns; she’s twenty and he’s twenty one, and she’s loved him for years and she’s never so much as kissed him but she understands him soul-deep. 

"I love you so much," she babbles, because she can’t help it. It’s out in the open now. "I’m in your room. I shouldn’t of come into your room."

"It’s not my room anymore."

His voice is tight and she can tell that he’s hurting, and she feels worse, like her chest is being stomped on and she wishes he were around to fillet her himself with his blade. She wants to run her tongue over his blade and every part of him but also kiss him until she can’t breathe. She wants to feel his steel in her palm and let his wavelength stroke hers, so trusting and sure in her abilities and in one another. 

"It’s  _always_  going to be your room,” she hiccups. “I want to go with you. Take me with you.”

It’s unreasonable; he can’t, they both know she can’t, but she can’t feel his wavelength anymore and she feels empty. She feels like she did when Mama left, except now it’s worse because it’s happening again and Mama was a given — she chose to let Soul in.

"Maka," he repeats. "I’m in Europe, Maka."

"I love you. I love you so much. Please come home."

His breath quakes and trembles and she knows he’s crying. She’s seen him cry twice, but she’s heard him cry plenty. 

"… I can’t… I’m in Europe. I have a post, now. A job. You’re just hurting yourself by waiting around for me. Get out of the room."

It’s an appalling thought to leave the last piece she has left of him. “Can’t I just…”

"Quit your job?" he laughs, but nothing is funny and she doesn’t join him. His voice is thick and low and garbled, broken and cracked but she cradles the phone closer to her ear. "You can’t do that. You have to teach soul perception."

"I don’t want to teach. I want to kiss you."

It aches so badly. She wonders if he feels it too. When he sucks in a shaky breath and she hears ruffling, she knows it. She used to be able to read him, know him, and it’s comforting to know that she still understands him without the aid of resonance; she’s terrified at the thought of waking up one day and not remembering the shape of his smile or his dimples, or the sound of his voice or the way his fingers felt as the brushed along her thigh to bandage a wound.

And she croons her love for him again, because she can’t stop herself and he’s a mess on his end, too. 

"I love you," he admits, and she wants to read the thickness in his voice but can’t decipher it through the white noise. "I love you too."

She doesn’t feel any better when the phone call ends. The ache worsens and she presses her face against the bed. She’s afraid that he’ll vanish and she needs to soak what’s left of him into her veins. 


	3. Cross My Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and hope to die.

The smell of coffee rouses her from sleep.

She blinks blearily and she brushes a hand through her hair; fingers catch on her tangled pigtails and she chuffs. Sleeping with her hair up always results in headaches and she knows better, she does, but Soul tended to make her stupid and there’s some bitter irony in him still messing with her even when he’s not around. Deft, trained fingers yank her hair free from its confinement and she breathes out a sigh of relief. 

"Blair?" she calls blindly; she hopes it’s Blair, because otherwise it’s her father, and she can’t handle his smothering tendencies right now. 

When she doesn’t get an answer, she investigates. There’s a crook in her neck from sleeping on Soul’s mattress and leaning on her arms, but it’s nothing a little stretching can’t fix, she reasons, and it gives her something to focus on when she strides through his doorway and down the hall.

She’s proud of herself for passing through his tomb without lingering needlessly or breaking down again. Her under eye still feels raw, cheeks sore, heart sunken, and she’s really considering drinking her coffee black to inject some life back into her system when she sees the back of broad shoulders swaddled in familiar, worn leather and she gasps aloud. 

He turns, their eyes meet, and her throat constricts. And then suddenly no, being twenty isn’t adulthood at all — she’s feeling small and her heart is beating so fast that she’s afraid she might get sick. 

She doesn’t feel her age at all. She feels twelve, feels like she’s just watched her mother walk out of her life again and she can’t breathe, because Soul shouldn’t be in their —  _her_  — kitchen. He belongs there and he’s the one who bought the coffee pot, but she knows that he’s supposed to be thousands of miles away in Europe, doing his job, and not looking exhausted, like he hasn’t slept for days. 

Guilt eats at her, swallows her stomach, but it doesn’t quite meet her soul; she’s nervous, eager, and he’s so close that she can finally feel him again — she’s not whole without him, she’s half of who she has been for the past eight years, and part of her doesn’t care that he might be on the run or in serious trouble. She can tell he hasn’t shaved in days and she wants to rub her cheek against his stubble, wants to feel the friction and reassure herself that he’s there with her and that he’s real. 

"… Soul?"

He half-smiles, the corner of one side of his mouth pulling up and she’s surprised at how badly she wants to kiss his dimple. 

The coffee was aromatic and not at all distracting enough. Her stomach was humming when it should’ve been groaning. She skipped dinner the night before in favor of calling him and proceeding to melt down — but the excitement and thrill of having him back has her body on red alert.

She catches her breath again. “I didn’t expect you to be here. You were…  _Europe?_ " 

His fingers spread along the edge of the counter as he leans back. His body language is meant to be lazy and easy going but she can read the crease between his brows. He’s anxious and nervous, like her, but he’s here and she might not be dreaming.

Is she dreaming? She needs to know, needs to reassure herself by touching him and running her fingers along his skin and dragging her tongue along the length of his scar. He says something about catching the first flight back to Nevada but she’s already striding toward him. By the time he’s spitting out his admittance to needing a pick me up because of the jet leg, she’s practically sprinting across the kitchen and throwing herself at him.

Europe is forgotten when her arms lace around his neck and her legs link around the small of his back. One of his hands remains glued to the counter behind him while the other secures itself to the small of her waist, and when her mouth meets his and their teeth clank together awkwardly, they only puff momentarily before trying again.

Kissing him is like seeing cosmos, and she’s enthralled by him. Soul is all heated skin and short breaths, mouth hot and greedy against hers and she has no complaints. She needs to feel him against her, needs to know he’s real and that he isn’t leaving. She’s never letting him go again.

Living without him is empty, and she doesn’t want to go back to pining after him across an ocean and refusing to set foot into his room because it reminds her that he’s just a ghost to her now. He can’t be a ghost when he’s poignant and she can feel his pulse beneath her finger tips, when he’s moaning her name and she’s working her hips against him.

When he moves his arm off of the counter, she pushes his jacket over his shoulders. He maneuvers himself to let it drop to the floor and her hands explore, fingers greedily grazing and dragging down the bare skin of his back beneath his shirt and earns herself a low, low “ _Maka,_ " and her center burns.

She’s wanted to kiss him since she was sixteen and now he’s groaning her name. It’s perverse how easily his voice turns her on, how easily it’s always turned her on. 

He loves her. He loves her, and he took the first flight home because he loves her and she loves him, and she feels no shame in letting him crush her against the wall and drag his fingers down the flesh of her thigh.

"… Can I?" he murmurs against her mouth, panting, and his hand is shaking. His thumb rubs circles into her inner thigh and it makes her want to cry because he’s so close and she’s soaked.

” _Please_.”

His fingers are a little clumsy and he’s probably lost, but his mouth finds hers again and she’s overwhelmed and her nerves are fizzing; there’s so much stimulation, between the fingers that’re peeking through her panties and stroking her slowly, slowly, to the mouth that slants against hers and she knows he’s trying so hard to leave his mark on her.

She wants to know how long he’s wanted her too. She wants him to show her, wants him in every way, wants him forever, with or without Europe or Nevada or the whole world. She orbits around him and he her, and when his mouth slips down to nibble and kiss along her jaw, she sings his name.

He pauses and she catches a glance of his expression. He looks more open than she can ever remember, eyes wild and burning, mouth open and he shudders when she mewls his name again. He’s hard against her thigh and heat blooms in anticipation; when his fingers meet her again and he slips through her folds, she’s pretty sure she can’t even place Europe on a map.

x

He’s beautiful.

His body is beautiful and his skin is softer than she anticipated. He lays beneath her and drums his fingers along the curve of her back, tapping out quiet melodies onto invisible keys. He’s already tuned her.

Her mouth presses against the peak of his shoulder, and then her cheek. His eyes are closed but he’s still awake, barely — his breathing is legato but not completely even. He’s not inside of her anymore but she still feels delightfully whole and full, like she’s Maka again and not the shell of the girl she’s been for weeks. 

"Soul," she breathes, and he hums in quiet acknowledgement of her. His fingers taptaptap and her hips roll, and she’s delighted at the sigh that slips through his lips.

He presses a kiss to the crown of her hair. He’s so gentle that it makes her want to cry, makes her want to cradle his face in her hands and help him come again. But he’s tired and she can tell. The coffee was for his exhaustion and he didn’t have the chance to drink it, he was too busy with her.

She can’t stop staring at him and how he looks curled up in her sheets, bare skin soaking in the sun that peeks through her curtains and warms him. She wants to wake up every day and find his white hair on her pillowcases.

"Soul," she begins again. "Don’t go back. Stay here."

He exhales slowly. “I want to stay here but I don’t know how we’ll make it w—”

"Let’s get married."

Her face is pink but she’s sure of what she wants and what she means. Soul pinks too and his fingers twitch against her back; she can feel his soul swell against hers when his grasp tightens around her and she scoots up to brush her lips against his. “Are you sure?” is a breath shared between them, from him to her, and she nods, because she’s never been more sure about anything. 

He can’t kiss her because he’s smiling too wide and he’s contagious. 


End file.
